Dangerous Return to Homeland : Tennis: Pair of former Pierce players are determined to visit relatives in Croatia despite ongoing war.

Ivo and Zlatko are dead. Vukovar has been bombed to ashes.

And former Pierce College tennis player Vanja Nadali, suitcase in hand, knew he was jeopardizing his own life last week when he boarded a jet bound for a land once called Yugoslavia.

It didn’t matter. Croatia was calling.

“My friends here think it’s crazy to go,” Nadali said on the eve of his departure. “But I’m going to see my family and friends. A war is not going to keep me away.

“Not at all.”

And as the plane departed Los Angeles International Airport and roared toward the unknown, Roman Antolic cheered for Nadali.

Antolic--a native of Yugoslavia who, like Nadali, played tennis at Pierce--is side-by-side his friend in spirit.

Soon, however, the two will be side-by-side in a dangerous place. On July 7, Antolic will leave to visit his grandmothers, aunts and uncles in the village of Velika Pisanica, a suburb of Bjelovar. Bjelovar is a city in partial ruins. On July 17, Antolic will join Nadali for the remainder of the summer in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.

“The people are incredible,” Antolic said, “and the coast is so beautiful. I just love going back.”

Antolic and Nadali, both 21, have their names penciled onto Division I rosters at U.S. colleges. Antolic will play next season at Iowa, where he attended last year after transferring from Pierce. Nadali, who was ranked 22nd in the state in singles and No. 9 in doubles at Pierce last season, has a scholarship waiting at Texas-Arlington.

They have seen fire in the sky of their homeland. But that doesn’t keep them away.

Last Christmas, in quiet moments while visiting their families, they heard gunshots in the distance. They heard explosions that shook Zagreb’s perimeter, destroyed churches, museums and hospitals in Bjelovar and reduced the city of Vukovar to ashes.

Nadali’s favorite tournament was in Vukovar.

Sometimes he walked the streets during that year-end visit, looking for friends he could not find. Nadali, born and raised in Yugoslavia, left his friends behind four years ago when he became an exchange student at Burroughs High in Burbank. He attended Pierce in 1991-92 and 92-93.

Antolic was born in Yugoslavia but was raised in Burbank and also played at Burroughs after his father, Davor Antolic, a popular actor in Yugoslavia, came to America to work at NBC. Antolic, who played at Pierce in 1990 and ‘91, has dual citizenship and visits his Croatian relatives frequently.

Nadali and Antolic easily yield to the pull of Croatia, acknowledging how their love of the land and people will never allow them to turn their backs on their homeland. But they don’t comprehend war. Especially when Yugoslavs fight Yugoslavs.

“It’s confusing the hell out of me,” Nadali said. “I don’t understand anymore what’s going on.”

Nadali often wonders how many friends he has left in Croatia. He wants to find them. They no longer come around the Karaka, the pool hall-video arcade where Nadali met and befriended Ivo and Zlatko (whose last names he never knew) before he came to America.

“I know when I go back, Ivo and Zlatko are not going to be there,” Nadali said. “I’m not wanting to believe it.”

Details of his friends’ deaths were sketchy, the news received in letters or telephone calls from other friends. “Ivo went down to Bosnia,” Nadali said. “I don’t know exactly what happened. I know he got killed from a bullet.

“I don’t know if Zlatko and Ivo volunteered for the army. A lot of guys volunteered. And I don’t know how Zlatko died. A friend just mentioned it to me like, ‘Oh, by the way . . .’ ”

Most of Nadali’s closest friends were tennis players whose parents had enough money to get them out of the country as exchange students. But many more of his Karaka buddies were less fortunate.

“There are other guys I knew who have died, but I don’t remember their names,” said Nadali, who stayed out of his country for two years until last December. “It’s been so long, I can no longer connect the names with the faces.”

The earliest attacks by the Serbs on Croatia almost two years ago were nearly catastrophic for the people of Zagreb. The Serbian army’s wave of destruction reached the southern bank of the Kupa River just south of Zagreb. The Serbs stopped there, eventually pulled back and haven’t returned. For the time being, Zagreb is a relatively safe city. Antolic and Nadali can expect to play plenty of tennis.

“But you don’t feel comfortable,” Davor Antolic said. “You know a war is around somewhere.”

And in the minds of two young tennis players, a tug-of-war has taken place between reality and memory.

They keep thinking Yugoslavia still exists--that the towns and people have not changed since the battle lines were drawn. Their plans this summer are unchanged from summers past: play tennis with old friends, enter the same tournaments, take a cruise along the Adriatic coast. Reality might intrude on those plans, however.

“I’ve been going back every summer since I was a little kid,” Antolic said. “The war has definitely changed it, but I don’t think my people are as affected as the Muslims or the refugees. I don’t see my family being drastically changed. They’re strong enough to deal with it and live on.”

Both of Antolic’s grandfathers--Stanko Antolic and Misa Brodar--died in battle when his parents were children.

They were killed in the 1940s--years of mayhem when bordering nations fought on Yugoslav soil for territorial control in World War II and an estimated 1.8 million countrymen were killed. While the Allies battled the Axis powers during those years, a civil war raged between Serbs, who aligned themselves with Russia and Stalin, and the Croats, who sided with Germany and Hitler.

“World War II was devastating to our family,” said Antolic, his mood darkening. “We were a very, very close family.”

And once again, there is war.

Nadali and Antolic’s people, the Croats, along with the Muslims of Bosnia, are defending themselves against the Serbs, a minority fighting to gain power through territorial control.

Well into the second year of conflict, the Serbs have gained more than territory. Slobodan Milosevic was elected president of Serbia in December, and the Serbs swiftly gained a strong-armed influence over government, universities, trade unions, judges and the media.

“It’s totally out of hand,” Nadali said. “I’m hoping somebody will step in, because the way it looks now, it could go on another 10 years.”

But as Croatians living in the United States, Antolic and Nadali are removed emotionally to an extent.

“I live in Iowa now, and I just can’t really relate,” said Antolic, uncomfortably. “I think like an American. You know: what I’m going to eat for dinner, what I’m going to do on the weekend. . . .”

For the citizens of Croatia, life exists moment by moment.

“There were planes flying over and sirens every night,” said Nadali, recalling the disturbing backdrop to Christmas at home. “The people who stayed, they lived down below their buildings. It was pretty scary. There were a lot of refugees, a lot of poor people walking around.”

Nadali boarded the plane earlier this month with guarded anticipation of what the coming days would reveal. “I can’t really say that I’m afraid, but I’m hoping I’m not going to be,” he said. “And I’m hoping all my buddies are going to be there.

“My mood is: When I go back I expect everything’s going to be fine. And I’m going to be able to go play tournaments at the places I used to go.”

But Nadali’s friends have been missing in action. They carry their rackets in somebody else’s country now--or they carry rifles in their own. “Vukovar is totally destroyed,” Nadali sighed. “There’s one house left in that city.

“It hurts me to see this happening.”